NORTHAMPTON, Mass.
-- The Smith College Campus School's 2003 Book Fair provided
a special opportunity to help local children gain literacy.

Families who shopped at the Nov. 5 to 7 fair contributed
more than $600 to Reach Out and Read (ROR), a national program
that provides new books for children through their pediatricians.
ROR-trained physicians and nurses counsel parents that reading
aloud is the most important thing they can do to help their
children learn to love reading and be ready to start school.

The Campus School donation will benefit families who participate
in ROR through Springfield's High Street Clinic. More than
3,500 new books are given away each year to children in the
High Street area, where 95 percent of families live below
the poverty level. In addition, "gently used" books
are made available in the clinic's waiting room and doctors'
offices. Volunteers read aloud to children, demonstrating
techniques for looking at and reading books together.

Since 1989, ROR has been working to make childhood language
and literacy a standard part of pediatric primary care. ROR
founder Dr. Barry Zuckerman notes that "Families who
participate in Reach Out and Read are four to eight times
more likely to read to their children, resulting in an increase
of the children's language development." ROR programs
serve more than 1.5 million families nationwide with a special
focus on reaching children growing up in poverty.

Founded in 1926, the Smith College Campus School is a co-educational
laboratory day school enrolling 270 children from Northampton
and the surrounding communities in grades K through six.
The school has a regular practice of community service that
focuses on a range of local, national and international issues
and needs. Projects have included food drives, work with
the developmentally disabled, and the collection and donation
of supplies to a school in Mexico.